Did he mean continuously, or for a specified short period of time while the worker was there?
When I was 10 years old we had an 85 pound German Shepherd. She was a well behaved dog but, one day, she saw a squirrel and wanted to go for it. Tried with all my might to stop her but it wasn’t enough. She literally dragged me along the sidewalk. But, having to drag me slowed her enough that the squirrel got away with minimal effort. Very smart dog though and she never tried again…I am guessing she realized that dragging me was too much effort to catch the squirrel.
Fast-forward 20 years and I had a different German Shepherd. She was about 100 pounds. Also well behaved but there were some moments. It was a struggle to restrain her but I could do it…if only barely.
Heh, I don’t know. I assume he meant whenever they were present (maybe once a month). Regardless, my answer would be no. Our dogs were in our yard under my verbal control.
And that’s really my point. In my view verbal control works only until it doesn’t. Anyone who asserts their dog responds 100% of the time to verbal control simply hasn’t had their dog get excited enough to see the dog ignore them completely. Yet.
True physical control, if you’re bigger enough to do it, is the only actual control. And if you’re not bigger enough, you aren’t in control, period.
Now ref @kayaker just above, or @Beckdawrek earlier … when one lives rural enough that chance encounters with strangers are few and far between there’s a lot of room to run that small risk. When wandering around in busy cities with strangers and other dogs all about, the situation is utterly different. Some suburban person will encounter more strangers in a single morning out than e.g. @kayaker’s dogs will encounter in 5 years.
We often have one or more dogs with us when we are out and about. We choose activities for which that works well. Our pontoon boat is an example. We keep our boat at a marina that is very dog friendly. Indeed, our boat is christened “Lucky Dog”.
We take Kizzy with us to a dog friendly brewery. They advertise that dogs are welcome and their beers all have dog related names (they brew an IPA called Zoomies that I love). The brewery was Kizzy’s first place she visited as a puppy. She is always on her best behavior there. She has her AKC Good Citizen Certification, knows wheelchair and walker etiquette, is gentle with kids, etc.
We were there one evening before happy hour. It was pretty empty, and Kizzy was the only dog. We were near the door sitting on a couch. A guy walked in and came over to us. He told us his gf was outside, afraid to come in because of her fear of dogs. He asked us to leave. I explained that our dog was very well behaved and the brewery was dog friendly. I further told him that very shortly the happy hour crowd would arrive and there would likely be more dogs than people.
He went out and talked to his gf and they went elsewhere.
Right- “reasonable and customary” should be the standard in situations like this. The dog owners aren’t obligated to go cross the street or go out of their way just because BIL has some sort of irrational fear of dogs. That’s his phobia and something he needs to deal with, especially where it intersects “reasonable and customary” dog ownership behaviors and dog behaviors.
That’s the way I feel about it. Nobody else really has an idea of what’s gone on in someone else’s life, or is going on in their head, physiology, etc. and they’re not responsible for dealing with it either. I used to work with an older woman who supposedly had all sorts of chemical sensitivities and she’d grouse at people who’d wear smelly hairspray at work or cologne (who sat nowhere near her; but might walk by), or when the cleaning crew changed products. As if it was their problem that any of this gave her headaches or whatever. Those of us who did sit near her and interacted with her did our best to accommodate her, but she had the attitude that it was everyone else’s problem to look out for her issue, and honestly expecting people not to wear scented products is way outside of “reasonable and customary”.
Similarly, I’ve had people tell me on Reddit that men approaching women to talk/exchange numbers/flirt is some kind of problem on the men’s part, because it’s triggering to some women who’ve had traumatic experiences. Again… reasonable and customary. Nobody knows who has and hasn’t been through those experiences, but that doesn’t mean we should avoid talking to each other because someone might have an issue. That’s ultimately their thing to deal with and work around, not the general public’s.
The equation does change when you’re in closer proximity and know a bit of someone’s backstory. For example, we did wear unscented products around my co-worker because we were aware of her issue, and if I knew that someone was afraid of dogs, I’d cross the street to avoid them. But without that information, it’s their issue not mine.
In response to the OP… maybe it’s both?
I’d say that rational or irrational, we all have a duty to some degree to make each other comfortable. The easier it is to accommodate, the less important the rationality of the request.
The more sound the fear, the more consideration we should give it.
Of course, “is this fear rational?” and “is this accommodation easy to implement” are very subjective questions.
Farm dogs are often also doing jobs they need to be able to run free to do; whether that’s protecting livestock, or protecting crops, by keeping creatures who would like to eat them away from the fields.
Having said that – if I had a request from an immediate neighbor to keep my dog inside for a few hours a month, with notification in advance as to when that would be, I’d oblige them – if only because I’ve known people who were afraid of dogs to attack a dog which wasn’t menacing them (after which sometimes the dog did menace them, of course). If it was just ‘we don’t know when we’ll show up but we want your dog inside or on leash’ – no way.
I think I might be confused - do you mean your dogs are never outside without you being outside or that you were outside at that particular time or something else ? Because I assume that there is no fence between the right of way and (the rest of ?) your yard. I might refuse to keep my dog inside for even a few hours a month if there was a fence- but I would agree to doing so with prior notice if there is no fence, because even if I’m certain I could always control the dog verbally, I wouldn’t want be obligated to stay outside for those few hours a month.
@bump - well said.
We finally got widespread limitations on secondhand tobacco smoke not because most of us found it noxious, but because of the well-documented health harms from it.
That’s the distinction. Widespread objective harm. Not individual subjective harm.
That kinda takes the discussion into an area I hadn’t considered or intended. I often hear about instances - such as at colleges - in which people are expected to consider potential microaggressions, etc. I’m not sure I wished this discussion to go into the reasonableness and accommodation of that sort of “fear.” But we are sure going to town on the topic of dogs, so have at it if folk want.
Re: dogs, I’m sorta surprised at folk who seem to suggest that they are not wholly responsible for their dog if their dog is very large and/or has some aggressive behaviors. If you are not CERTAIN that you can COMPLETELY control your dog - if it sees a squirrel, if a little dog approaches, if your dog has leash aggression… - then IMO it is 100% on you to either NOT own such a dog or, if you choose to, to not put it in situations where it might get out of your control. At the very least, a muzzle while walking on a short leash, which you are gripping firmly. And walk in uncrowded areas where you are less likely to encounter other people/cyclists/children/dogs… More likely, exercise in a fenced yard.
Just this dog lover’s opinion.
We are usually/always outside with our dogs. I might be cutting grass while my gf is doing barn work, for example. Our dogs prefer to be with us. My gf might run inside to pee (I go in the bushes).
There is no fence anywhere, but our dogs are trained not to bother neighbors by going on their property. The right-of-way is along one edge of our property and the dogs know they aren’t allowed there. They will go into our woods (usually to poop) but will come running back when called.
I have a serious snake phobia that is totally irrational and it’s a “me” problem insofar as it’s a problem……I haven’t encountered a snake in over 30 years so mostly the phobia involves leaving the room if a TV show takes an unexpected turn (Yellowstone, I’m looking at you).
The snake encounter 30 years ago happened when a man with a boa constrictor draped around his neck came onto the subway platform while I was waiting for a train. I walked to the opposite end of the platform to board the train, then I immediately got obsessed with the idea that the guy might walk through the train to my car, so I got off at the next stop and waited for the next train.
This is different. Phobias are irrational fears about harmless (or at least very low risk) things. Previous traumas which occurred in similar situations are not phobias, because they do not have an irrational basis. Maybe you feel that women who have been raped should just suck it up and not cause any other men to have adjust their behavior. I would say, that’s a you problem.
If someone has chemical sensitivities this is not a phobia either. It can be a real limit to where you can spend time. The physical illness is perfectly real. Just because you feel you shouldn’t have to be inconvenienced doesn’t make it irrational.
Phobias about non-real problems. I had a friend who was so afraid of heights that she could not get out of a car parked on the cliff side of a road. No matter that the cliff edge was forty feet away and had a barrier. That’s a phobia.
People who come unglued when some harmless bug gets in their house, those people get zero sympathy from me. Many city people have really stupid phobias about the natural world which anger me. But women who have been sexually threatened, or raped, and now get nervous in similar situations? People who get sick from the chemicals other people daub on themselves? Please.
I know the OP is about phobias, but whether something must be accommodated or not doesn’t just apply to phobias. For example, let’s take the people who have reactions to scents. It’s perfectly acceptable for them to ask coworkers not to wear cologne. How about telling coworkers what laundry detergent they can use? Suppose that’s the only detergent that doesn’t make their skin break out?
Plus, it’s often impossible for a bystander to know if fear of dogs is a phobia. If I’m afraid of dogs, a passerby has no idea if it’s a phobia or if I have been bitten by a dog in the past.
As far as dogs go … it’s the responsibility of the dog owner to make sure their dog does not cause distress to other people, within reasonable limits. Phobias by their nature are not reasonable, and it isn’t really possible to ensure the comfort of phobics.
The people who posted about snake phobias are a case in point. Since snakes are almost always perfectly harmless, this is an irrational fear. Irrational fears can for most people be at least mitigated, through therapy. But most people will not pursue therapy, because even the thought of the phobia makes them afraid.
I don’t have phobias (if you don’t count my fear of being made to watch amateur theatricals), so it is hard for me to empathize, but I do think I see the mechanism by which an irrational fear feeds on itself. The phobia trigger (seeing a picture of snake, say) rehearses the fear, over and over. You never practice getting through the fear, only feeling it, and running from it. Since I train animals, I’m familiar with how fears feed on themselves if they always end in avoidance.
That’s a sidetrack. But really, if you have a phobia, and you refuse to face it and do something about it, definitely a you problem.
For a long time I had a spider phobia, which was definitely a “me” problem. I think I saw a movie as a young child that involved a giant tarantula terrorizing a town. (At one point I would freak out if I saw a daddy long legs harmless hanging from the ceiling.) I have since been forced to accept that most spiders are harmless, and more importantly learned how to identify the ones that aren’t, and no longer have an irrational fear. Even at my worst I wouldn’t leave the room if there was a menacing spider on TV because logically it can’t hurt me. My ex would come home and I would be watching the original Indiana Jones movie and she would see what I was watching and then lock herself in the bedroom until it was over. Snakes! why did it have to be snakes! Now THAT’S a totally irrational fear if I ever saw one.
If you are afraid of a dog that is leashed, and can’t reach you, but is near you, that’s a phobia, and i think it’s a you problem. If you are afraid of dogs that can reach you, because of prior experiences with aggressive dogs, then i think others should be considerate and keep their dogs away from you.
And i don’t think it’s irrational for women to fear men who are hitting on them, sadly, but I’m afraid that might turn into a hijack.
Thank you for your well-stated clarification.
Yes, I intended to discuss phobias, as clarified by Ulfreida. Not past traumas or psychological/physical conditions which may warrant accommodation. I’d prefer that discussions of such matters take place elsewhere.
I suppose there might be SOME overlap, say if someone’s fear of dogs/snakes/spiders resulted from having been bitten - which was undoubtedly traumatic. Or fear of flying resulted having witnessed a plane crash or having someone close to you in a plane crash. And I suppose a discussion might be had as to whether a particular person’s perception of and reaction to some unpleasantness resulted in a “rational” fear. But I suspect most of us are capable of understanding that this thread is NOT intended to discuss that sort of response to “trauma.”
I saw this on edit. Yes, I would prefer if mods would treat such posts as hijacks. Your most recent post clearly sets out another distinction I hoped was obviously intended in this thread.
You sound like a friend of mine. I used to do regular phresis donations at a Red Cross near where I used to work, One day I came back to work afterward and unwittingly went to chat with this friend. With both my arms bandaged. He chatted for a minute or two, then politely asked me to go away. I didn’t mind. Even though I’ve never had even a twinge of needle phobia.
One thing that helped me was to know that spiders are (mostly) our friends. They eat other bugs I like less than spiders. But when I was a little kid I was like @Ann_Hedonia about snakes only about bugs. If I was reading a magazine that had pictures of bugs (especially big beetles) I wouldn’t even touch the page. I outgrew it.